Gee, it's almost like they're aware things are fucked up and are preparing for the worst. Rather than using some of their massive wealth to help fund social change, they'd rather keep exploiting...
Gee, it's almost like they're aware things are fucked up and are preparing for the worst.
Rather than using some of their massive wealth to help fund social change, they'd rather keep exploiting the rest of us and "Castle Up" for when we eventually get sick of their bullshit.
Assuming that the individual pools aren't like Olympic swimming pools it's possible that each one starts to feel overcrowded after a half-dozen people. So, yeah, somewhere in the 50-200 person...
Assuming that the individual pools aren't like Olympic swimming pools it's possible that each one starts to feel overcrowded after a half-dozen people. So, yeah, somewhere in the 50-200 person range? I'm just a regular joe, but I know that many people I wouldn't mind inviting to a party if I had a venue and money to host that kind of thing. Especially if I extend it to people who I've ever worked with or might expect to want to work with in the future, I could see the value of owning a venue where I can be the host. It's a giant networking flex on top of everything else. It's wasteful as a house, but if you think of it as a small private party venue on top of a residence it stops seeming quite so absurd.
Oh, sure. It's unreasonable for basically anyone to build and entertainment venue just so that it's always available when they want it. It's a waste. I can understand why people do it, but it's...
Oh, sure. It's unreasonable for basically anyone to build and entertainment venue just so that it's always available when they want it. It's a waste. I can understand why people do it, but it's such a waste.
I've had the chance to get to know the security of some ultra-wealthy people and one thing that's very interesting is just how varied it can be. The pattern I've noticed is that the level of...
I've had the chance to get to know the security of some ultra-wealthy people and one thing that's very interesting is just how varied it can be. The pattern I've noticed is that the level of security seems less correlated with wealth, and more correlated with how much of their life is wrapped up in their business. For many of these people, their homes/lives are a business, and security equipment and staff are just a part of the operation like you'd have at an office building.
There's also a split between those who want their security approach to be intimidating and restrictive vs those who treat it more as an obligation. Whenever I hear about bad interactions with the wealthy due to their security, it seems like such an obvious own-goal; pissing off the people you interact with not only earns you a terrible reputation, it's also incredibly stupid from a security perspective.
Makes me wonder how many "incognito wealthy" sitting on the extreme opposite end of the scale are out there, living in comparably only-marginally-nicer houses in unremarkable suburbs and not...
Makes me wonder how many "incognito wealthy" sitting on the extreme opposite end of the scale are out there, living in comparably only-marginally-nicer houses in unremarkable suburbs and not standing out at all.
You'll never know someone's net worth by their house. In the SF Bay Area there are plenty of older multi-millionaires in jeans and outdoor wear living in perfectly fine houses in middle class...
You'll never know someone's net worth by their house. In the SF Bay Area there are plenty of older multi-millionaires in jeans and outdoor wear living in perfectly fine houses in middle class neighborhoods. And those are the people who will be passed over if things get nastier.
I believe history shows otherwise. People seem to celebrate the idea of violence vs the top of the chain and boy do I fucking get it, but there seems to be a serious range of definitions of where...
And those are the people who will be passed over if things get nastier.
I believe history shows otherwise.
People seem to celebrate the idea of violence vs the top of the chain and boy do I fucking get it, but there seems to be a serious range of definitions of where that stops, and I have absolutely been around the people who would very casually, and literally, say that such people deserve to be "up against the wall".
It is honestly one of the reasons I really hate for people who casually call for violence, because I don't think they understand just how many people are going to wind up dead who they personally would've thought were fine.
Oh, yeah, no, I'm assuming that they'll be passed over mostly because they aren't visibly rich, not because people would otherwise give them a pass. Unless we're to the point where banks are being...
Oh, yeah, no, I'm assuming that they'll be passed over mostly because they aren't visibly rich, not because people would otherwise give them a pass. Unless we're to the point where banks are being forced to reveal who has more than a million dollars so that they can be rounded up, the people who blend in will blend in and avoid notice, while the people who stand out, won't.
"they're hurting the wrong people" also exist on that end of things yes, if there's a frenzy where it becomes locally socially acceptable to hurt others within our community because they're...
"they're hurting the wrong people" also exist on that end of things yes, if there's a frenzy where it becomes locally socially acceptable to hurt others within our community because they're perceived to be slightly wealthier. Small time heavily mortgaged middle aged barely getting by people will be surprised how little a mob cares whether the victims even have a retirement fund or live paycheque to paycheque
If that day ever comes it's going to be like school shootings x1000. In the American and French Revolution they didn't have automatic rifles and drones.
If that day ever comes it's going to be like school shootings x1000. In the American and French Revolution they didn't have automatic rifles and drones.
To be a bit literal about it, you're likely off by one or two 0's. Lot more population, lot more weaponry, LOT more infrastructure that will be non functional that's allowed vast swaths of people...
To be a bit literal about it, you're likely off by one or two 0's. Lot more population, lot more weaponry, LOT more infrastructure that will be non functional that's allowed vast swaths of people to live who wouldn't normally, and much more likely to not have clearly defined lines or objectives.
And that's before you get into the chance of other nations seeing this as an opportunity to get involved/worried they need to secure nuclear launch capability.
I speculate they don't exist, based on the premise that anyone who can subsume thier own ego enough to forgo the huge houses with 8 pools in exotic locations, also probably chose a different path...
I speculate they don't exist, based on the premise that anyone who can subsume thier own ego enough to forgo the huge houses with 8 pools in exotic locations, also probably chose a different path earlier in life when faced with a decision that would result in them making "very comfortably rich" or "fucking obscene rich".
They do. Warren Buffet pretty famously lives in a 6,000 sq foot house in a suburb of Omaha worth a million or so. He's been living in that same house since the 50s. I think there are a lot of very...
They do. Warren Buffet pretty famously lives in a 6,000 sq foot house in a suburb of Omaha worth a million or so. He's been living in that same house since the 50s.
I think there are a lot of very wealthy people who don't like to show off their wealth. You just don't hear about them too much because it's not as juicy as the ones blowing 80 million dollars on ridiculous mansions.
To elaborate: I consider roughly 500sqft per person + 400 a reasonably sized house. Family of 4 gets roughly a 2400sqft budget. Unless Buffet has like 8 or 9 kids, I put him in the same bucket,...
To elaborate:
I consider roughly 500sqft per person + 400 a reasonably sized house. Family of 4 gets roughly a 2400sqft budget.
Unless Buffet has like 8 or 9 kids, I put him in the same bucket, the same way that 0% and 59% are still an F. Or having 10 cars or 100.
Heck, hoarding billions while living humbly is almost worse. Like a king sitting on a pile of grain as his people starve.
He could write a check to pay all student loan debt in the country and still have $100,000,000,000.
I don't think anyone is really arguing that Buffet's house is average, or that he's a great person, the argument is that house does not show off his wealth. You wouldn't look at that house and...
I don't think anyone is really arguing that Buffet's house is average, or that he's a great person, the argument is that house does not show off his wealth. You wouldn't look at that house and assume a multi-billionaire lives there. Now what isn't commonly shown or talked about the house is what possible security measures he has, and I imagine for someone of his fame that he would have to have gotten security measures at some point and those security measures could potentially indicate a greater level of wealth than the house itself may indicate. I did find an article stating he had a small guardhouse built on the property in the 2000s but I didn't look any deeper because I don't care to know the specifics.
I think that's painting with an extremely broad brush. Reasonable for someone in New York City is not the same as reasonable to someone living in rural Kansas. Someone who's main hobbies involve...
I think that's painting with an extremely broad brush. Reasonable for someone in New York City is not the same as reasonable to someone living in rural Kansas. Someone who's main hobbies involve going out and checking out new restaurants or museums may not want or need a lot of space, but someone into woodworking would.
A 6000 sq foot house is big, but it's not uncommon at all in the area where buffet lives. He also bought the place in the mid 50s for 31,500, which was completely attainable on a upper middle class income.
I get the point you're making, but Buffet is a particularly bad example. He's donated 60,000,000,000 to charity over his lifetime, continues to be the world's biggest philanthropist, and has set up a trust to donate virtually all of the rest of his wealth upon his death.
He's said he lives meagerly (compared to other well off people) because he doesn't feel that spending more money on himself would make him any happier, and he's probably right. I think there's a certain type of person that views attaining wealth as a challenge that gives them satisfaction, rather than hoarding wealth as a goal in it of itself as something that gives you status. Warren Buffett definitely seems like the former.
Sometimes all you need to become wealthy is to be working for the right company at the right time and to not do anything stupid. There's nothing fair about this, but that's how Silicon Valley...
Sometimes all you need to become wealthy is to be working for the right company at the right time and to not do anything stupid. There's nothing fair about this, but that's how Silicon Valley often works. There's a lot of luck involved.
There are also people who inherited their wealth. This is common for people who grew up middle class in California because real estate prices went up so much.
Then there are people who bought Bitcoin on a whim and for some reason didn't sell and actually remember where they put the private key. They're not necessarily any smarter or dumber or more virtuous or more evil than anyone else. It's more like buying a lottery ticket.
Life: not fair. Capitalism: not fair either.
I judge people more on what they do after achieving that wealth.
I am nowhere near "wealthy", but I did stumble into -- not just "IT", but a very specific vein of IT that just happened to be in high demand right in the area where I lived, right at the time I...
I am nowhere near "wealthy", but I did stumble into -- not just "IT", but a very specific vein of IT that just happened to be in high demand right in the area where I lived, right at the time I started working in that vein ... and over the course of a few years, my salary climbed a lot faster than I had any right to expect.
After a few years, I made a conscious decision and effort to stop letting my cost of living continue to expand right along with my salary. I more or less froze my living expenses somewhere around the $30-40k/year mark, while my salary continued to climb, and I invested the extra funds into paying down the mortgage, maxing-out my IRA contributions, etc.
In other words, I got lucky, and even better, I was lucky enough to realize I had gotten lucky, and planned accordingly.
Edit to add: I am often amazed by how people can become rich and famous -- actors, sports stars, etc -- and then, 5 years later, be bankrupt and auctioning off their old basketball shoes (or whatever) just to pay the rent. Then I remember, I got lucky.
Similar situation here. Went from literally broke and quasi-homeless → making decent money with retirement and rainy day funds in under a decade. Not wealthy yet, but paths to that are now open...
Similar situation here. Went from literally broke and quasi-homeless → making decent money with retirement and rainy day funds in under a decade. Not wealthy yet, but paths to that are now open (starting my own business, etc) all thanks to a set of skills I built goofing around on a computer as a teenager coincidentally becoming valuable with the advent of smartphones.
So yeah, a lot of luck. Some discipline and money sense is required for it to work out long term, though. I didn’t have those early on and was spending most of my paycheck but thankfully I wisened up and took action to change that.
I feel like it’s the reverse. How many rich people do you really know? If they’re multi-millionaire+ and live a quiet life, by definition you probably have no idea who they are and that they’re...
I feel like it’s the reverse. How many rich people do you really know? If they’re multi-millionaire+ and live a quiet life, by definition you probably have no idea who they are and that they’re rich. The observational bias is to notice noticeable rich people - that is, the ostentatious ones.
As is often the case, what's the cutoff? Where do you draw the line between "comfortable" and "obscene"? There's LOTS of people north of 10m net worth who you'd never pick out of a crowd. Hell of...
As is often the case, what's the cutoff? Where do you draw the line between "comfortable" and "obscene"? There's LOTS of people north of 10m net worth who you'd never pick out of a crowd. Hell of a lot less at the 1b mark, but private equity is a thing, and they take that privacy very very seriously.
People often have a very west focused view of these discussions but many of the worlds wealthy have opted to not play around in the media pool of pointless Forbes lists because it doesn't affect their country if they're on it or not.
It reminds me of this NYT article from a few years ago(gift article), about a man who built a $6.5mil house in rural KY with a bunker to weather out a civil war during the obama years. A deranged...
It reminds me of this NYT article from a few years ago(gift article), about a man who built a $6.5mil house in rural KY with a bunker to weather out a civil war during the obama years. A deranged man from OH drove to his house, broke in and killed his daughter, likely because he had a bunker.
The castling phenomena always struck me as rather stupid. If any system collapse occurs they will not survive the month. It's not the rioters or looters either - it's the people they pay to stand...
The castling phenomena always struck me as rather stupid. If any system collapse occurs they will not survive the month. It's not the rioters or looters either - it's the people they pay to stand behind them with loaded guns. As soon as the economy collapses, they will have problems paying those people without money, and defending rich folks from armed vengeful mobs is probably not what their guards had in mind when they signed up. The guards will also have their own families and well-being in mind, not their rich boss.
What's worse, their contacts list, business and/or economic knowledge, everything that made them 'rich' becomes worthless. At that point a rich person is just another zero real-world skill pleb in the chaos. There comes a point where the guards will realize it's better to loot and scoot - or just bury the boss and take over the compound for themselves.
If it's literally an apocalyptic scenario then yeah, but they're probably anticipating more of a civil war, strife and purge style period followed by the government they're already cozy with...
If it's literally an apocalyptic scenario then yeah, but they're probably anticipating more of a civil war, strife and purge style period followed by the government they're already cozy with restoring control. Keep in mind, historical castles literally were just fortified private residences where a rich guy would hole up when times were dire with his family and a small staff of armed servants, and that idea worked for centuries.
It worked when there were military forces too fragmented to siege, before cannon, mortars, or other explosives, with internal sources of water and deep stockpiles of food. Not saying that it's...
It worked when there were military forces too fragmented to siege, before cannon, mortars, or other explosives, with internal sources of water and deep stockpiles of food. Not saying that it's impossible to make a residence actually secure today, but most of the security on these mansions is likely more in the range of defending against a kook or two rather than border reavers or actual military force.
On the other hand, I've seen "I'll pay you next week" work, especially for those who are caught suddenly off guard and unaware/unable to conceive of alternative options, who have a vested interest...
On the other hand, I've seen "I'll pay you next week" work, especially for those who are caught suddenly off guard and unaware/unable to conceive of alternative options, who have a vested interest to pretend everything is fine. There's nothing stopping a boss in that situation telling his private militia that their new duties include roughing up the locals and taking from them. I'm not saying this will last forever, but I think we're seeing in real time how long a crook can stay in power behind a willingly blind militia.
Understandably so. Brian Thompson was assassinated fifteen months ago. Many sympathise with the alleged killer and there is a very real possibility that Luigi Mangione could walk free due to jury...
Understandably so.
Brian Thompson was assassinated fifteen months ago. Many sympathise with the alleged killer and there is a very real possibility that Luigi Mangione could walk free due to jury nullification when his case goes to trial in state and federal court.
I have seen a growing number of "eat the rich" comments online, and people genuinely calling for us to start guillotining billionaires and corrupt politicians. Wealth inequality in the US has reached levels previously seen in France pre-Revolution and I think it's only a matter of time until things kick off - and things are going to get much uglier than previous revolutions.
Did income inequality go down post-Revolution? There was a time of chaos in which the provisional government impoverished itself launching fruitless wars, then immediately after an imperial system...
Wealth inequality in the US has reached levels previously seen in France pre-Revolution
Did income inequality go down post-Revolution? There was a time of chaos in which the provisional government impoverished itself launching fruitless wars, then immediately after an imperial system that eventually impoverished itself after fruitless wars, then a restored monarchy that essentially existed because Britain wanted a counterbalance to Russia.
That movie Civil War had a president, that was a caricature of our current president, get killed by rebels. I know thats Alex Garlands style to invoke a feeling of shock like that, but that scene...
That movie Civil War had a president, that was a caricature of our current president, get killed by rebels.
I know thats Alex Garlands style to invoke a feeling of shock like that, but that scene was bold, that hit hard.
It never really stopped? This article is acting like its a new thing, it isn't. Benevolent or malicious some level of security starts to be reasonable once you're over a certain line. I went to...
It never really stopped? This article is acting like its a new thing, it isn't.
Benevolent or malicious some level of security starts to be reasonable once you're over a certain line. I went to school with a kid who had an emergency button at all times because a relative of his had been kidnapped and ransomed.
When there are absolutely legit grievances about wealth inequality and a shitload of wannabe revolutionaries calling for blood in the streets, yeah things escalate, but its never made sense to just completely forgo security after a point.
Hell even if these people gave up all their wealth there are those out there who would still absolutely be willing to harm them. I'm not saying they're benevolent or something, but the game theory on it has basically always been that once you're a public entity you need some level of protection. That's before you even get into parasocial/mental illness stuff like stalking.
The inequality is crazy. I thought, wow what a dummy, why didn't he directly call the police? Because I am the dummy: when we got broken into and called the police and told them the robbers are...
The inequality is crazy.
Grant managed to call his manager, who phoned the police.
I thought, wow what a dummy, why didn't he directly call the police?
Soon, officers and helicopters were on the scene
Because I am the dummy: when we got broken into and called the police and told them the robbers are inside the house RIGHT NOW and we're just teens, they just told us to go somewhere else and they'll come later to take a statement. They and HOURS later. Calling the police saying we're teens and people are in our home doesn't do anything; calling to tell them "my client" is rich gets helicopters.
Companies offering personal security benefits for CEOs increased ... 27% of respondents offered home security benefits to CEOs, the highest level since 2003.
Meanwhile most of us don't even get cell phone necessary for work covered.
(Edit: redundant text)
Hartz said he co-founded his own security company, Sauron, in 2024
Because Palantir was already taken, obviously
The company sends teams to clients’ homes to take drone footage and photographs and then produces a 3D model to identify security vulnerabilities. I
I see your assessment and I raise you hackers to access these vulnerability reports, thanks for doing the work for me
a feature that automatically triggers sounds, such as dogs barking or police sirens coming closer. [...]
The actual dogs also mentioned, in comparison, sound like a decent deterrent / detection system. Have a groundskeeper staff person live on the cottage with his partner and kids, give them a couple of well trained dogs and it's his full time job to just....hang around play with his kids and the dogs and walk around the property making sure things look secure.
I remember reading one of these articles where a rich guy says he's got an island in the event of a social apocalypse, and the reporter asked if his compound has living spaces for his helicopter pilot's family (no). I feel like a lot of these people are underutilizing how useful a dedicated neighbour or two can be.
During a routine cyber audit conducted by the company, Garcia recently learned that one of his children’s friends had posted a picture to Instagram of the contents of Garcia’s home safe in Fort Lauderdale, which included precious metals.
The family quickly made sure the photo was removed.
Does it feel like the article ended very abruptly here?
No your comment is great I think you just unintentionally duplicated some text and while reading it I had a moment of thinking I accidentally scrolled back up or something. 😅Sorry for the noise...
No your comment is great I think you just unintentionally duplicated some text and while reading it I had a moment of thinking I accidentally scrolled back up or something. 😅Sorry for the noise comments
My current favorite theory for the apocalypse is best articulated by Ben Davidson. He has a recently released documentary about it (1.5h) but some may prefer a more in-depth long-form podcast...
My current favorite theory for the apocalypse is best articulated by Ben Davidson. He has a recently released documentary about it (1.5h) but some may prefer a more in-depth long-form podcast instead. (3h)
His theory does ring a bit truer than other woo-woo conspiracy garbage to me, there's a frankly disturbing amount of circumstantial evidence for it. I'm sure he believes it and isn't doing this for a grift, considering what espousing this theory already cost him personally and professionally - there are far easier ways to make money.
If this is the 'big secret' that the elites believe and refuse to share with the rest of us, that would also explain most of the activity they and various governments are engaging in - and it also explains why they don't care about trying to prevent societal collapse. Ocean current failure and weather changes are a walk in the park compared to this stuff. :)
That's harder than it looks at first glance, this rabbit hole is deep. Earth has a bit of a secret. It has to do with Earth's slow moving rise and fall as it roams around the galaxy. The solar...
That's harder than it looks at first glance, this rabbit hole is deep. Earth has a bit of a secret.
It has to do with Earth's slow moving rise and fall as it roams around the galaxy. The solar system moves up above the galactic plane and down below it again, taking about twelve thousand years for the trip. Somewhere along that path, it passes through the galactic disc and a large debris field that is not itself part of the solar system. When that happens, it's raining rocks for decades, but that's not the worst of it.
The sun gets jammed up eating all the dust and debris, forms a bit of a crust from all the infalling material, then goes mental and blows all that off again in a micro-nova - which means Earth gets cooked hard by solar flares and impacted by that debris. Apparently he thinks we get occasional burps/waves from the galactic center on a somewhat regular basis that compound this effect - not sure exactly how that works and neither is he. It sounds wild, but there's evidence for it all over the lunar surface and Ben makes a pretty interesting case that finding this evidence was the point of the Apollo missions - not beating Russia.
There's another part to this having to do with pole shifts that I'm not completely sold on as the evidence is a lot thinner. All this solar activity heats up Earth, and she expands, which breaks the continents apart and sends them floating freely around for a little while. The weight of the ice caps at the poles pulls the crust around and all of the continents rotate 90' in the course of a couple days or weeks - kicking off the oceans which slosh around and produce mile-high tsunamis. Plus the continents are rising and falling, so new ones pop out of the ocean and others sink under it. Literally no way to predict where is safe in this scenario - other than air or in a big damn boat. It's like that 2012 disaster movie, only much worse.
Then it all settles down and we all forget it happened - except for biblical or other historic references about falling stars, worldwide floods, mountains moving out of their places, volcanic eruptions, ancient calendars marking the end of the cycle, etc... until the next time it happens again.
I'm not saying I'm fully on board with it, but it's the best story going around by far to explain all the crap that I've ever seen. It's worth pointing out that this is a variable apocalypse. We might get off light on some cycles and get clobbered on others.
That is absurd and lacks even the tiniest shred of evidence in the geologic record. We have millennia of geologic records that easily refute the continents moving on that sort of timeline,...
That is absurd and lacks even the tiniest shred of evidence in the geologic record. We have millennia of geologic records that easily refute the continents moving on that sort of timeline, tsunamis such as the ones you describe, major and extensive meteor impacts, any of that. I'm glad you're having fun with it, but it's such bunk.
I'm simply saying I can see people like Elon Musk or Donald Trump or a handful of government agency types believing in all this and basing all of their decision-making on it going forward. Who...
I'm simply saying I can see people like Elon Musk or Donald Trump or a handful of government agency types believing in all this and basing all of their decision-making on it going forward. Who needs an apocalypse to wreck the world if our leaders run it into the ground preparing for a doomsday that isn't even real? :p
Sure, and if they're really magma people from below the crust of the earth here to prepare the holy ritual to convert the crust into lava as occurs every two hundred years we're defenseless...
Sure, and if they're really magma people from below the crust of the earth here to prepare the holy ritual to convert the crust into lava as occurs every two hundred years we're defenseless against their molten aggression. But until a theory bears at least a passing resemblance to reality I don't see the point in spending any time or attention on it.
The same issue I have with lots of these kinds of theories is that if “their” intention was to keep this a secret from “the rest of us” then they’ve done a bad enough job that this one dude is...
The same issue I have with lots of these kinds of theories is that if “their” intention was to keep this a secret from “the rest of us” then they’ve done a bad enough job that this one dude is literally making a living from spreading it around.
There’s quite a lot wrong with the numbers and timelines you’ve painted here, but I suppose the core of every good conspiracy theory (if that’s what we call this) is a handful of technically-correct or verifiable details which paint the overall picture as more realistic than it actually is.
Firstly we know that the magnetic poles flip every ~100,000 years and that we’re probably overdue another one by now, but we also know that it’s not some huge release of energy that moves continents around. But this magnetic pole reversal is the kind of thing that takes a long time to happen, which means we will have plenty of heads up that it’s starting to happen well before it’s actually causing issues. Even if it’s a blip on geological timescales, that can still mean decades or centuries.
Second, you mentioned that the solar system drifts in and out of a major dust ring on a cycle that repeats every 12,000 years, and the implication of “that’s why governments are acting the way they do” implies that we’re due for another event “fairly soon”. For example, if the harmful part of the cycle was still 2,000 years away, there would be no need to be taking action today. We can’t even imagine the level of technology we’ll have in 500 years into the future so no point preparing today if it’s a while away. But this premise is immediately counteracted by your suggestion that biblical or historical record confirms this cycle — the bible is about 2,000 years old at best, and our oldest writing is from a bit over 5,000 years ago, well short of the 12,000 year cycle you’re talking about. Even at the most generous interpretation, where the 12,000 year cycle includes passing through the plane of the galaxy twice per cycle, and we’re due for another within a few years, that’s still 6,000 years since the last one, and we don’t have written record that far back.
We do have spoken record dating back much further - Aboriginal Australians have oral traditions passed down over generations which include Dreamtime narratives which relate to natural events that occurred around 37,000 years ago. If these people have passed down localised geological events and accurate star maps over that timescale, they would have experienced this 12,000 year cycle cataclysmic debris event 3-6 times by now, and their star maps would not be accurate if the land they lived on had been rapidly rotated on lava flows.
Thirdly, people are people, and I have a hard time believing politics of 50 years ago is so dramatically different from politics today — specifically with regards to the moon missions, it’s much easier for me to believe the space race was a dick-swinging competition between USA and USSR than it is to believe that collecting rocks from the moon to verify some theory in secret without telling the rest of the scientific community was the point of billions and billions of dollars pushing the very limits of engineering to get people safely into space and back again. I feel like scientists are much more well known for sharing their discoveries with the international scientific community, with little regard for international politics or secret keeping.
I think a simpler explanation is that they believe that wealth and power will insulate them from any consequences of their actions, so the best thing they can do on a personal level is accumulate...
I think a simpler explanation is that they believe that wealth and power will insulate them from any consequences of their actions, so the best thing they can do on a personal level is accumulate those things even if that creates negative consequences for everyone else.
@doors_cannot_stop_me, I would love to hear your thoughts on ultra wealthy home security. you cannot pay me enough money to go into a concrete box that needs air if there is a home invasion going...
@doors_cannot_stop_me, I would love to hear your thoughts on ultra wealthy home security.
The home’s most fortified feature lies hidden behind a wood-paneled wall: a reinforced concrete safe room with a 2,000-pound door and an air filtration system built to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers standards.
you cannot pay me enough money to go into a concrete box that needs air if there is a home invasion going on, built by a home contractor. Seems like an especially unpleasant way to die. A bank vault probably, a jail maybe. But not Captain Trust Me Bro I Just Stared Doing This For Profit.
To be honest, that's all a bit outside of my wheelhouse (thankfully). I will say that even the biggest, baddest safes available in the US tend to be rated for 1 hour of defeat resistance, and the...
To be honest, that's all a bit outside of my wheelhouse (thankfully). I will say that even the biggest, baddest safes available in the US tend to be rated for 1 hour of defeat resistance, and the vault doors our government uses to secure its secrets and weapons are only rated to 20 or 30 minutes. I kind of doubt that "impenetrable" means what these people think it means. Real security comes from what happens during that 20-60 minute delay, and that means armed security, responsive police or nosy, friendly neighbors. It sounds to me like those things won't be around for the future they're obviously preparing for, so they'll have a cool hour or so to think about why they should have just supported their local community and made better friends while the people they've stepped on their whole lives crack open their vaults like a particularly tough piñata.
Thanks for chiming in! I'm somehow brand new to the idea that locks are rated by time -- which, one you have said it, makes total sense and is probably exactly what these buyers don't know either....
Thanks for chiming in!
I'm somehow brand new to the idea that locks are rated by time -- which, one you have said it, makes total sense and is probably exactly what these buyers don't know either. We're all imagining some kind of magical undefeatable Enigma Box when in reality, like any castle, a sustained siege will win.
How come the government ones have less defeat resistance time compared to home, is it different metric measured by 1hr home invaders vs 20-30min state actors?
That makes me remember the one with the truck Kool-Aid Man -ing the bank wall over a long weekend: if there's no detection / alert / police for a whole day, even the best lock won't do anything
The main reason to the best of my knowledge is cost and threat model. The requirements for the government assume a certain frequency of checks on the lock and specific alarm requirements, so that...
How come the government ones have less defeat resistance time compared to home
The main reason to the best of my knowledge is cost and threat model. The requirements for the government assume a certain frequency of checks on the lock and specific alarm requirements, so that time limit is more than enough to get someone caught and we don't have to spend quite so much money. The really high-end ones are very, very expensive but are required by insurance, and are used to protect stuff worth many times the expensive safe, so the cost makes sense, and the delay needed is longer since you probably don't have armed guards patrolling your jewelry store.
Interesting. When I submitted the post, I linked directly to the archive link, not the original WSJ link... Does Tildes automatically edit posts and update to originally linked source if you...
Interesting. When I submitted the post, I linked directly to the archive link, not the original WSJ link... Does Tildes automatically edit posts and update to originally linked source if you submit an archive link?
No, if you look at the topic log, you can see that hungariantoast changed it to the original link, as tildes is a Canadian site and Canada has some clear laws about sites assisting users in...
No, if you look at the topic log, you can see that hungariantoast changed it to the original link, as tildes is a Canadian site and Canada has some clear laws about sites assisting users in bypassing paywalls. The comments are what they are, but the posts can't be directly to an archive.
Gee, it's almost like they're aware things are fucked up and are preparing for the worst.
Rather than using some of their massive wealth to help fund social change, they'd rather keep exploiting the rest of us and "Castle Up" for when we eventually get sick of their bullshit.
Having eight pools in your home is beyond wealth inequality.
It seems like it's gotta be for entertaining. Too lonely otherwise. How big are these parties though?
Prpbably for all your friends that can helicopter to your
housefortress.I can't even imagine a party where you would need eight pools. 200 people?
Assuming that the individual pools aren't like Olympic swimming pools it's possible that each one starts to feel overcrowded after a half-dozen people. So, yeah, somewhere in the 50-200 person range? I'm just a regular joe, but I know that many people I wouldn't mind inviting to a party if I had a venue and money to host that kind of thing. Especially if I extend it to people who I've ever worked with or might expect to want to work with in the future, I could see the value of owning a venue where I can be the host. It's a giant networking flex on top of everything else. It's wasteful as a house, but if you think of it as a small private party venue on top of a residence it stops seeming quite so absurd.
Besides, it just seems like bad form to invite 200 people to your home nightclub without also offering them 8 places to swim.
I mean, it seems absurd to me to own a small private party venue where “private party” means literally just mine.
Oh, sure. It's unreasonable for basically anyone to build and entertainment venue just so that it's always available when they want it. It's a waste. I can understand why people do it, but it's such a waste.
At least whoever maintains the pools doesn't have to travel far between them.
Honestly I think the only real reason is that the Joneses next door had seven
I've had the chance to get to know the security of some ultra-wealthy people and one thing that's very interesting is just how varied it can be. The pattern I've noticed is that the level of security seems less correlated with wealth, and more correlated with how much of their life is wrapped up in their business. For many of these people, their homes/lives are a business, and security equipment and staff are just a part of the operation like you'd have at an office building.
There's also a split between those who want their security approach to be intimidating and restrictive vs those who treat it more as an obligation. Whenever I hear about bad interactions with the wealthy due to their security, it seems like such an obvious own-goal; pissing off the people you interact with not only earns you a terrible reputation, it's also incredibly stupid from a security perspective.
Makes me wonder how many "incognito wealthy" sitting on the extreme opposite end of the scale are out there, living in comparably only-marginally-nicer houses in unremarkable suburbs and not standing out at all.
You'll never know someone's net worth by their house. In the SF Bay Area there are plenty of older multi-millionaires in jeans and outdoor wear living in perfectly fine houses in middle class neighborhoods. And those are the people who will be passed over if things get nastier.
I believe history shows otherwise.
People seem to celebrate the idea of violence vs the top of the chain and boy do I fucking get it, but there seems to be a serious range of definitions of where that stops, and I have absolutely been around the people who would very casually, and literally, say that such people deserve to be "up against the wall".
It is honestly one of the reasons I really hate for people who casually call for violence, because I don't think they understand just how many people are going to wind up dead who they personally would've thought were fine.
Oh, yeah, no, I'm assuming that they'll be passed over mostly because they aren't visibly rich, not because people would otherwise give them a pass. Unless we're to the point where banks are being forced to reveal who has more than a million dollars so that they can be rounded up, the people who blend in will blend in and avoid notice, while the people who stand out, won't.
"they're hurting the wrong people" also exist on that end of things yes, if there's a frenzy where it becomes locally socially acceptable to hurt others within our community because they're perceived to be slightly wealthier. Small time heavily mortgaged middle aged barely getting by people will be surprised how little a mob cares whether the victims even have a retirement fund or live paycheque to paycheque
If that day ever comes it's going to be like school shootings x1000. In the American and French Revolution they didn't have automatic rifles and drones.
To be a bit literal about it, you're likely off by one or two 0's. Lot more population, lot more weaponry, LOT more infrastructure that will be non functional that's allowed vast swaths of people to live who wouldn't normally, and much more likely to not have clearly defined lines or objectives.
And that's before you get into the chance of other nations seeing this as an opportunity to get involved/worried they need to secure nuclear launch capability.
I speculate they don't exist, based on the premise that anyone who can subsume thier own ego enough to forgo the huge houses with 8 pools in exotic locations, also probably chose a different path earlier in life when faced with a decision that would result in them making "very comfortably rich" or "fucking obscene rich".
They do. Warren Buffet pretty famously lives in a 6,000 sq foot house in a suburb of Omaha worth a million or so. He's been living in that same house since the 50s.
I think there are a lot of very wealthy people who don't like to show off their wealth. You just don't hear about them too much because it's not as juicy as the ones blowing 80 million dollars on ridiculous mansions.
That's still like 3x the average family.
His wealth is far beyond 3x the average family, so the example still fits.
To elaborate:
I consider roughly 500sqft per person + 400 a reasonably sized house. Family of 4 gets roughly a 2400sqft budget.
Unless Buffet has like 8 or 9 kids, I put him in the same bucket, the same way that 0% and 59% are still an F. Or having 10 cars or 100.
Heck, hoarding billions while living humbly is almost worse. Like a king sitting on a pile of grain as his people starve.
He could write a check to pay all student loan debt in the country and still have $100,000,000,000.
I don't think anyone is really arguing that Buffet's house is average, or that he's a great person, the argument is that house does not show off his wealth. You wouldn't look at that house and assume a multi-billionaire lives there. Now what isn't commonly shown or talked about the house is what possible security measures he has, and I imagine for someone of his fame that he would have to have gotten security measures at some point and those security measures could potentially indicate a greater level of wealth than the house itself may indicate. I did find an article stating he had a small guardhouse built on the property in the 2000s but I didn't look any deeper because I don't care to know the specifics.
I think that's painting with an extremely broad brush. Reasonable for someone in New York City is not the same as reasonable to someone living in rural Kansas. Someone who's main hobbies involve going out and checking out new restaurants or museums may not want or need a lot of space, but someone into woodworking would.
A 6000 sq foot house is big, but it's not uncommon at all in the area where buffet lives. He also bought the place in the mid 50s for 31,500, which was completely attainable on a upper middle class income.
I get the point you're making, but Buffet is a particularly bad example. He's donated 60,000,000,000 to charity over his lifetime, continues to be the world's biggest philanthropist, and has set up a trust to donate virtually all of the rest of his wealth upon his death.
He's said he lives meagerly (compared to other well off people) because he doesn't feel that spending more money on himself would make him any happier, and he's probably right. I think there's a certain type of person that views attaining wealth as a challenge that gives them satisfaction, rather than hoarding wealth as a goal in it of itself as something that gives you status. Warren Buffett definitely seems like the former.
Sometimes all you need to become wealthy is to be working for the right company at the right time and to not do anything stupid. There's nothing fair about this, but that's how Silicon Valley often works. There's a lot of luck involved.
There are also people who inherited their wealth. This is common for people who grew up middle class in California because real estate prices went up so much.
Then there are people who bought Bitcoin on a whim and for some reason didn't sell and actually remember where they put the private key. They're not necessarily any smarter or dumber or more virtuous or more evil than anyone else. It's more like buying a lottery ticket.
Life: not fair. Capitalism: not fair either.
I judge people more on what they do after achieving that wealth.
I am nowhere near "wealthy", but I did stumble into -- not just "IT", but a very specific vein of IT that just happened to be in high demand right in the area where I lived, right at the time I started working in that vein ... and over the course of a few years, my salary climbed a lot faster than I had any right to expect.
After a few years, I made a conscious decision and effort to stop letting my cost of living continue to expand right along with my salary. I more or less froze my living expenses somewhere around the $30-40k/year mark, while my salary continued to climb, and I invested the extra funds into paying down the mortgage, maxing-out my IRA contributions, etc.
In other words, I got lucky, and even better, I was lucky enough to realize I had gotten lucky, and planned accordingly.
Edit to add: I am often amazed by how people can become rich and famous -- actors, sports stars, etc -- and then, 5 years later, be bankrupt and auctioning off their old basketball shoes (or whatever) just to pay the rent. Then I remember, I got lucky.
Similar situation here. Went from literally broke and quasi-homeless → making decent money with retirement and rainy day funds in under a decade. Not wealthy yet, but paths to that are now open (starting my own business, etc) all thanks to a set of skills I built goofing around on a computer as a teenager coincidentally becoming valuable with the advent of smartphones.
So yeah, a lot of luck. Some discipline and money sense is required for it to work out long term, though. I didn’t have those early on and was spending most of my paycheck but thankfully I wisened up and took action to change that.
I feel like it’s the reverse. How many rich people do you really know? If they’re multi-millionaire+ and live a quiet life, by definition you probably have no idea who they are and that they’re rich. The observational bias is to notice noticeable rich people - that is, the ostentatious ones.
As is often the case, what's the cutoff? Where do you draw the line between "comfortable" and "obscene"? There's LOTS of people north of 10m net worth who you'd never pick out of a crowd. Hell of a lot less at the 1b mark, but private equity is a thing, and they take that privacy very very seriously.
People often have a very west focused view of these discussions but many of the worlds wealthy have opted to not play around in the media pool of pointless Forbes lists because it doesn't affect their country if they're on it or not.
One of the few good takeaways about this read is maybe, just maybe they’ll have a shitty life constantly looking over their shoulder. As they should.
It reminds me of this NYT article from a few years ago(gift article), about a man who built a $6.5mil house in rural KY with a bunker to weather out a civil war during the obama years. A deranged man from OH drove to his house, broke in and killed his daughter, likely because he had a bunker.
The castling phenomena always struck me as rather stupid. If any system collapse occurs they will not survive the month. It's not the rioters or looters either - it's the people they pay to stand behind them with loaded guns. As soon as the economy collapses, they will have problems paying those people without money, and defending rich folks from armed vengeful mobs is probably not what their guards had in mind when they signed up. The guards will also have their own families and well-being in mind, not their rich boss.
What's worse, their contacts list, business and/or economic knowledge, everything that made them 'rich' becomes worthless. At that point a rich person is just another zero real-world skill pleb in the chaos. There comes a point where the guards will realize it's better to loot and scoot - or just bury the boss and take over the compound for themselves.
If it's literally an apocalyptic scenario then yeah, but they're probably anticipating more of a civil war, strife and purge style period followed by the government they're already cozy with restoring control. Keep in mind, historical castles literally were just fortified private residences where a rich guy would hole up when times were dire with his family and a small staff of armed servants, and that idea worked for centuries.
It worked when there were military forces too fragmented to siege, before cannon, mortars, or other explosives, with internal sources of water and deep stockpiles of food. Not saying that it's impossible to make a residence actually secure today, but most of the security on these mansions is likely more in the range of defending against a kook or two rather than border reavers or actual military force.
On the other hand, I've seen "I'll pay you next week" work, especially for those who are caught suddenly off guard and unaware/unable to conceive of alternative options, who have a vested interest to pretend everything is fine. There's nothing stopping a boss in that situation telling his private militia that their new duties include roughing up the locals and taking from them. I'm not saying this will last forever, but I think we're seeing in real time how long a crook can stay in power behind a willingly blind militia.
The music producer eventually sold the house and moved. Maybe they hoped that the next buyer would find these home features worth paying for?
Understandably so.
Brian Thompson was assassinated fifteen months ago. Many sympathise with the alleged killer and there is a very real possibility that Luigi Mangione could walk free due to jury nullification when his case goes to trial in state and federal court.
I have seen a growing number of "eat the rich" comments online, and people genuinely calling for us to start guillotining billionaires and corrupt politicians. Wealth inequality in the US has reached levels previously seen in France pre-Revolution and I think it's only a matter of time until things kick off - and things are going to get much uglier than previous revolutions.
Did income inequality go down post-Revolution? There was a time of chaos in which the provisional government impoverished itself launching fruitless wars, then immediately after an imperial system that eventually impoverished itself after fruitless wars, then a restored monarchy that essentially existed because Britain wanted a counterbalance to Russia.
That movie Civil War had a president, that was a caricature of our current president, get killed by rebels.
I know thats Alex Garlands style to invoke a feeling of shock like that, but that scene was bold, that hit hard.
Yeah I mean back in the day all the wealthy would make castles, so this is basically just, throwback to 500 years ago or something?
It never really stopped? This article is acting like its a new thing, it isn't.
Benevolent or malicious some level of security starts to be reasonable once you're over a certain line. I went to school with a kid who had an emergency button at all times because a relative of his had been kidnapped and ransomed.
When there are absolutely legit grievances about wealth inequality and a shitload of wannabe revolutionaries calling for blood in the streets, yeah things escalate, but its never made sense to just completely forgo security after a point.
Hell even if these people gave up all their wealth there are those out there who would still absolutely be willing to harm them. I'm not saying they're benevolent or something, but the game theory on it has basically always been that once you're a public entity you need some level of protection. That's before you even get into parasocial/mental illness stuff like stalking.
I was just pointing out that we’re going back to the level of wealth inequality that we saw in the middle ages.
The inequality is crazy.
I thought, wow what a dummy, why didn't he directly call the police?
Because I am the dummy: when we got broken into and called the police and told them the robbers are inside the house RIGHT NOW and we're just teens, they just told us to go somewhere else and they'll come later to take a statement. They and HOURS later. Calling the police saying we're teens and people are in our home doesn't do anything; calling to tell them "my client" is rich gets helicopters.
Meanwhile most of us don't even get cell phone necessary for work covered.
(Edit: redundant text)
Because Palantir was already taken, obviously
I see your assessment and I raise you hackers to access these vulnerability reports, thanks for doing the work for me
The actual dogs also mentioned, in comparison, sound like a decent deterrent / detection system. Have a groundskeeper staff person live on the cottage with his partner and kids, give them a couple of well trained dogs and it's his full time job to just....hang around play with his kids and the dogs and walk around the property making sure things look secure.
I remember reading one of these articles where a rich guy says he's got an island in the event of a social apocalypse, and the reporter asked if his compound has living spaces for his helicopter pilot's family (no). I feel like a lot of these people are underutilizing how useful a dedicated neighbour or two can be.
Does it feel like the article ended very abruptly here?
I got deja vu reading this comment ;)
Did I double post, or is this familiar old man shakes fist content? :)
No your comment is great I think you just unintentionally duplicated some text and while reading it I had a moment of thinking I accidentally scrolled back up or something. 😅Sorry for the noise comments
Oh I see it now, my mistake, thank you for pointing it out :)
Once the gulf streams stop we're all fucked, castle or not.
My current favorite theory for the apocalypse is best articulated by Ben Davidson. He has a recently released documentary about it (1.5h) but some may prefer a more in-depth long-form podcast instead. (3h)
His theory does ring a bit truer than other woo-woo conspiracy garbage to me, there's a frankly disturbing amount of circumstantial evidence for it. I'm sure he believes it and isn't doing this for a grift, considering what espousing this theory already cost him personally and professionally - there are far easier ways to make money.
If this is the 'big secret' that the elites believe and refuse to share with the rest of us, that would also explain most of the activity they and various governments are engaging in - and it also explains why they don't care about trying to prevent societal collapse. Ocean current failure and weather changes are a walk in the park compared to this stuff. :)
Can you give a short description of the documentary? Watching things like this tends to wreak havoc on my anxiety lol
That's harder than it looks at first glance, this rabbit hole is deep. Earth has a bit of a secret.
It has to do with Earth's slow moving rise and fall as it roams around the galaxy. The solar system moves up above the galactic plane and down below it again, taking about twelve thousand years for the trip. Somewhere along that path, it passes through the galactic disc and a large debris field that is not itself part of the solar system. When that happens, it's raining rocks for decades, but that's not the worst of it.
The sun gets jammed up eating all the dust and debris, forms a bit of a crust from all the infalling material, then goes mental and blows all that off again in a micro-nova - which means Earth gets cooked hard by solar flares and impacted by that debris. Apparently he thinks we get occasional burps/waves from the galactic center on a somewhat regular basis that compound this effect - not sure exactly how that works and neither is he. It sounds wild, but there's evidence for it all over the lunar surface and Ben makes a pretty interesting case that finding this evidence was the point of the Apollo missions - not beating Russia.
There's another part to this having to do with pole shifts that I'm not completely sold on as the evidence is a lot thinner. All this solar activity heats up Earth, and she expands, which breaks the continents apart and sends them floating freely around for a little while. The weight of the ice caps at the poles pulls the crust around and all of the continents rotate 90' in the course of a couple days or weeks - kicking off the oceans which slosh around and produce mile-high tsunamis. Plus the continents are rising and falling, so new ones pop out of the ocean and others sink under it. Literally no way to predict where is safe in this scenario - other than air or in a big damn boat. It's like that 2012 disaster movie, only much worse.
Then it all settles down and we all forget it happened - except for biblical or other historic references about falling stars, worldwide floods, mountains moving out of their places, volcanic eruptions, ancient calendars marking the end of the cycle, etc... until the next time it happens again.
I'm not saying I'm fully on board with it, but it's the best story going around by far to explain all the crap that I've ever seen. It's worth pointing out that this is a variable apocalypse. We might get off light on some cycles and get clobbered on others.
That is absurd and lacks even the tiniest shred of evidence in the geologic record. We have millennia of geologic records that easily refute the continents moving on that sort of timeline, tsunamis such as the ones you describe, major and extensive meteor impacts, any of that. I'm glad you're having fun with it, but it's such bunk.
I'm simply saying I can see people like Elon Musk or Donald Trump or a handful of government agency types believing in all this and basing all of their decision-making on it going forward. Who needs an apocalypse to wreck the world if our leaders run it into the ground preparing for a doomsday that isn't even real? :p
Sure, and if they're really magma people from below the crust of the earth here to prepare the holy ritual to convert the crust into lava as occurs every two hundred years we're defenseless against their molten aggression. But until a theory bears at least a passing resemblance to reality I don't see the point in spending any time or attention on it.
You don't, but then you are probably a lot more intelligent than most of our leaders. ;)
The same issue I have with lots of these kinds of theories is that if “their” intention was to keep this a secret from “the rest of us” then they’ve done a bad enough job that this one dude is literally making a living from spreading it around.
There’s quite a lot wrong with the numbers and timelines you’ve painted here, but I suppose the core of every good conspiracy theory (if that’s what we call this) is a handful of technically-correct or verifiable details which paint the overall picture as more realistic than it actually is.
Firstly we know that the magnetic poles flip every ~100,000 years and that we’re probably overdue another one by now, but we also know that it’s not some huge release of energy that moves continents around. But this magnetic pole reversal is the kind of thing that takes a long time to happen, which means we will have plenty of heads up that it’s starting to happen well before it’s actually causing issues. Even if it’s a blip on geological timescales, that can still mean decades or centuries.
Second, you mentioned that the solar system drifts in and out of a major dust ring on a cycle that repeats every 12,000 years, and the implication of “that’s why governments are acting the way they do” implies that we’re due for another event “fairly soon”. For example, if the harmful part of the cycle was still 2,000 years away, there would be no need to be taking action today. We can’t even imagine the level of technology we’ll have in 500 years into the future so no point preparing today if it’s a while away. But this premise is immediately counteracted by your suggestion that biblical or historical record confirms this cycle — the bible is about 2,000 years old at best, and our oldest writing is from a bit over 5,000 years ago, well short of the 12,000 year cycle you’re talking about. Even at the most generous interpretation, where the 12,000 year cycle includes passing through the plane of the galaxy twice per cycle, and we’re due for another within a few years, that’s still 6,000 years since the last one, and we don’t have written record that far back.
We do have spoken record dating back much further - Aboriginal Australians have oral traditions passed down over generations which include Dreamtime narratives which relate to natural events that occurred around 37,000 years ago. If these people have passed down localised geological events and accurate star maps over that timescale, they would have experienced this 12,000 year cycle cataclysmic debris event 3-6 times by now, and their star maps would not be accurate if the land they lived on had been rapidly rotated on lava flows.
Thirdly, people are people, and I have a hard time believing politics of 50 years ago is so dramatically different from politics today — specifically with regards to the moon missions, it’s much easier for me to believe the space race was a dick-swinging competition between USA and USSR than it is to believe that collecting rocks from the moon to verify some theory in secret without telling the rest of the scientific community was the point of billions and billions of dollars pushing the very limits of engineering to get people safely into space and back again. I feel like scientists are much more well known for sharing their discoveries with the international scientific community, with little regard for international politics or secret keeping.
I think a simpler explanation is that they believe that wealth and power will insulate them from any consequences of their actions, so the best thing they can do on a personal level is accumulate those things even if that creates negative consequences for everyone else.
Archive link without paywall:
https://archive.ph/UxBWm
@doors_cannot_stop_me, I would love to hear your thoughts on ultra wealthy home security.
you cannot pay me enough money to go into a concrete box that needs air if there is a home invasion going on, built by a home contractor. Seems like an especially unpleasant way to die. A bank vault probably, a jail maybe. But not Captain Trust Me Bro I Just Stared Doing This For Profit.
To be honest, that's all a bit outside of my wheelhouse (thankfully). I will say that even the biggest, baddest safes available in the US tend to be rated for 1 hour of defeat resistance, and the vault doors our government uses to secure its secrets and weapons are only rated to 20 or 30 minutes. I kind of doubt that "impenetrable" means what these people think it means. Real security comes from what happens during that 20-60 minute delay, and that means armed security, responsive police or nosy, friendly neighbors. It sounds to me like those things won't be around for the future they're obviously preparing for, so they'll have a cool hour or so to think about why they should have just supported their local community and made better friends while the people they've stepped on their whole lives crack open their vaults like a particularly tough piñata.
Thanks for chiming in!
I'm somehow brand new to the idea that locks are rated by time -- which, one you have said it, makes total sense and is probably exactly what these buyers don't know either. We're all imagining some kind of magical undefeatable Enigma Box when in reality, like any castle, a sustained siege will win.
How come the government ones have less defeat resistance time compared to home, is it different metric measured by 1hr home invaders vs 20-30min state actors?
That makes me remember the one with the truck Kool-Aid Man -ing the bank wall over a long weekend: if there's no detection / alert / police for a whole day, even the best lock won't do anything
The main reason to the best of my knowledge is cost and threat model. The requirements for the government assume a certain frequency of checks on the lock and specific alarm requirements, so that time limit is more than enough to get someone caught and we don't have to spend quite so much money. The really high-end ones are very, very expensive but are required by insurance, and are used to protect stuff worth many times the expensive safe, so the cost makes sense, and the delay needed is longer since you probably don't have armed guards patrolling your jewelry store.
Interesting. When I submitted the post, I linked directly to the archive link, not the original WSJ link... Does Tildes automatically edit posts and update to originally linked source if you submit an archive link?
No, if you look at the topic log, you can see that hungariantoast changed it to the original link, as tildes is a Canadian site and Canada has some clear laws about sites assisting users in bypassing paywalls. The comments are what they are, but the posts can't be directly to an archive.
Ah interesting. Thanks for the additional context.
Things keep going the way they are, and we'll see about the "impenetrable" part....
You're not wrong about that.
...i think they've realised that we're coming for them...
I have a feeling these aren't being penetration tested. If so, that makes them even less justifiable